


Homework Help

by TheNoctambulist



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Homework, Schoolwork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:21:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24065740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNoctambulist/pseuds/TheNoctambulist
Summary: Adam needs to finish his homework, and he does so with the help of a couple old friends.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley & Adam Young (Good Omens), Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Dog & Adam Young (Good Omens), The Them & Adam Young (Good Omens)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	1. Part 1

“Adam, honey, time for homework.” 

Twelve-year-old Adam Young peered over his  _ New Aquarian  _ magazine. “Mum, I’m busy.” He ducked back into his reading material.

“Adam, listen to your mother.” This time it was his father that spoke. 

“I’m reading,” Adam called back. 

“Is it for school?” his mother asked from the kitchen. 

He thought about lying for a moment, but decided against it. “No.”

Deirdre Young appeared at the doorway, wiping her wet hands on her slacks. “Adam.” She entered his room and plucked the magazine from his grip. 

“Mum!” At his side, Dog whimpered. 

“You need to get it done at some point, Adam. No point in waiting.”

“Can’t I do it after I finish reading the article?” 

Deirdre flipped through the  _ New Aquarian _ , eyes falling on a story claiming the UN was secretly a cover for an underground puppy trafficking ring. “Anathema lets you read these?”

Adam nodded earnestly. “She’s a good sport. She gives me all her old ones.”

Anathema had moved into Jasmine Cottage permanently. Adam was a regular guest to her new home, often bringing the Them and Dog along. They spent long afternoons drinking lemonade (Anathema always seemed to have a fresh jug lying around) and chatting. Adam liked Anathema because she treated him like an adult.

“I’ll give it back once you’re through. You wouldn’t want to get in trouble with Mrs. Harris  _ again _ .” Deirdre looked accusingly at him. 

“School is just  _ boring _ ,” he protested. “It’s not my fault they don’t teach anything interesting.”

Adam had begun to find school a little monotonous for his liking. Stopping armageddon had really put everything in perspective for him. It wasn’t that he thought he was too good for school; he simply thought it useless and believed he could be doing other,  _ better _ things with his time.

This new attitude landed Adam in trouble no less than three times in the first month. His teacher, Mrs. Harris, did not have patience for children like Adam. His mind was always elsewhere and when it was present it had no intention of participating in relevant discussions. 

The feeling, of course, was mutual; Adam could not abide Mrs. Harris in the slightest. She was awfully condescending and her face was permanently pinched. She reminded him of Mr. Tyler. It hadn’t helped that Adam had seemed to fall on her bad side immediately. All he did was mention the Tibetan tunnels  _ one time _ , and suddenly she started calling him “Mr. Young” with a very sharp tone of voice and threatening to call his parents every other day. 

“Just because it’s boring doesn’t mean it’s not worth learning,” Deirdre regaled, and then departed with Adam’s  _ New Aquarian _ . Having no choice but to follow her, he whistled to Dog and the two followed her down the stairs. 

“Come now. You can work in the kitchen, next to your father,” Deirdre offered. She had already placed his backpack at the foot of a chair. She gestured to it and then continued with her dinner preparations. 

Adam sighed and plopped down in the chair. He took out his binders and folders and little scraps of paper that were once worksheets but had been mutilated by the other items they shared the backpack with. 

Adam surveyed his items with distaste. His least favorite part of homework was the starting bit; honing his focus was still a skill he struggled with. 

He had just started to take out his maths assignment when the doorbell rang. 

“I can get it,” he offered over Dog’s barks, eager to step away from his schoolwork. 

“Not so fast,” Deirdre said. “ _ I’ll _ go get the door. You have to complete your work.”

Adam listened as his mother’s feet faded down the hall. The door opened, and he was met with three familiar voices.

“Is Adam home?” Pepper asked.   
“We want to go into the woods,” Brian said. 

“Only if he’s not busy,” Wensleydale added. 

Adam listened to his mother tell the Them that sadly, Adam was rather behind on his schoolwork, and unfortunately had to stay inside until he finished it, but if they came back tomorrow he would certainly be free. He groaned. 

“Mum! Why can’t I go out and play?” he asked Deirdre when she returned.   
“Adam, you have work to do. Perhaps if you finish it very, _very_ quickly I will let you join them for fifteen minutes before dinner.”

Adam gave another humph of disgruntlement. “I don’t  _ want _ to do my work first. I want to go out with Them!”

“Adam, you must learn that work comes before play. I understand you’re used to summer with its endless hours of fun and sun, but now’s the time for homework. It won’t do itself while you sit there moping.”

“I can’t focus!” he complained. 

“Then go somewhere quiet!” Deirdre returned to chopping the ends off of beans. 

It took Adam five minutes to move his school things from the kitchen to the den. It normally would’ve taken a good deal shorter, except Adam was dragging his feet and making as much noise as he could in protest of his mother’s harsh sentence.

Adam settled in and took out his homework. He turned towards his maths worksheet and then decided he would rather start with English. He had opened his battered copy of the book they were reading, when the doorbell rang a second time. 

He made a move as to get up, but his mother, despite not seeing him, predicted this movement and called “I’ll get it!”

Adam found himself reading the same sentence over and over again as he tried to listen in on the conversation between the people at the door and his mother. He heard her say something about how it was a surprise, and then she offered tea. It must be someone they knew, then. At least it wasn’t some door to door salesman, or Mr. Tyler come to snitch on him for riding his bike through private property and ruining the grass. 

He wondered if it could be Anathema. Maybe she had come to rescue him from his piles of work to go ghost hunting.

As Deirdre’s footsteps approached the door, Adam frantically looked back at his book to appear as if he had been working. 

His mother cleared her throat and he looked up. It wasn’t Anathema behind her. Rather, it was two men, one looking very preened and plump, the other skeptical and sharp. 

“Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley are here to see you, dear,” his mother said. 


	2. Part 2

Deirdre led the two into the room. Aziraphale offered Adam a little wave. “I’ll be back with your tea, Mr. Fell.”

“Oh, thank you, Mrs. Young. You’re too kind.” As soon as Deirdre left, both Crowley and Aziraphale turned to Adam.

“So,” Crowley grunted. “How’ve you been?”

Adam shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”

Aziraphale smiled. “That’s absolutely fantastic. And uh... is Dog well too?”

Adam glanced at his feet, where Dog lay, breathing slowly. “He’s fine.”

“Lovely.” Aziraphale glanced at Crowley, and the two exchanged a look. Aziraphale cleared his throat.

“Adam,” he began. “Adam.”

“Yes?” Adam replied. 

“Crowley and I were wondering if you’d been… contacted. Since-- you know, well-- _Armageddon_ , I suppose.”

“The Them come by every afternoon to play,” Adam said. “I suppose we get contact. And I go to school. It’s quite hard to avoid contacting people there.”

“Not those sorts of people,” Aziraphale clarified. “More like the ones”--he pointed at the floor--“ _down there_. Or up there, I suppose,” he added, throwing in a gratuitous point to the ceiling. 

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Adam stated. 

“Azirapahle wants to know if you’re dear old Devil dad has tried to talk to you since the supposed end of the world. Or the Almighty, for that matter. Or the Archangels or dukes and princes of Hell.” Crowley ticked off a finger for every being he mentioned. 

“Other than you two, no,” Adam confessed. He had led a mostly normal life since Armageddon. 

Aziraphale and Crowley noticeably relaxed at his words. “Thank heavens,” Aziraphale murmured under his breath. 

At that moment, Deirdre returned with Aziraphale’s tea.

“Oh, thank you ever so kindly,” Aziraphale gushed as she placed the steaming mug in his hands. 

Deirdre smiled. “It’s no trouble at all, Mr. Fell.”

Aziraphale smiled at her and took a sip. “That’s lovely.”

“Well, I’ll leave you three be,” Deirdre said and then left the room.

Aziraphale turned to Adam. “What’ve you got there?”

“Homework,” Adam grunted. “Haven’t started yet, though. And _Mum_ won’t let me go outside ‘till it’s finished.”

“Oh!” Aziraphale’s face sparked with an idea. “Would you care for some help?”

Adam shrugged. “If you want. It’s awfully boring.”

Aziraphale had already pulled a chair up and placed his glasses on his nose. “Now then. What have we got here?”

“English. We have to read _A Wrinkle in Time_.”

“Oh, I remember that book. Not entirely accurate in its portrayal of the universe, but quite imaginative all the same. Though I do recall cherubim in later books… anyways!” Aziraphale clapped. “Let’s get on with it, then.”

“I have to read two chapters today,” Adam said. 

Aziraphale frowned in concentration. “Well, that doesn’t seem like too much. Crowley? Would you like to read?”

Crowley, who had been fading into the corner of the room, looked up at his name. “Hmm?”

“Do you want to read to us?” Aziraphale and Adam looked at him with expectant eyes.

“I-- c’mon now, I don’t read-- oh, all right. Fine.” Crowley gave in to Aziraphale’s pleading face. He stepped forward and picked up the book. “Where are we starting?”

“The beginning,” Adam piped. Crowley flipped open the first two pages and cleared his throat. 

“It was a dark and stormy night…” Crowley’s voice was surprisingly soothing, and he kept a steady pace through the two chapters. Aziraphale detected the subtle hint of character voices when Crowley read the dialogue. When he was through reading, Adam had rested his head on the table, and Aziraphale’s hand was on top of Crowley’s.

“Marvelous job, my dear,” Aziraphale commented. “You still haven’t lost your touch.”

“For Satan’s sake, Angel,” Crowley replied, slightly flushing. 

“It was really good, Mr. Crowley,” Adam said. “You actually made it interesting. Mrs. Harris just spoils everything.” He bent over and retrieved his math worksheet. “My maths worksheet is next.”

“Is this-- algebra?” Aziraphale asked, squinting at the paper. “That’s not really my area of expertise. Crowley, dear, didn’t you _invent_ algebra?”

“Hmm? Oh. Yeah. Guess I did. Al-Khwarizmi, really nice guy. I thought I was being sneaky, putting _letters_ into _mathematics_ . Who’d’ve thought? But then they were actually able _to make use of them_.” Crowley shrugged. “I’m pleased to know it still troubles students. Least one of the things I actually did causes suffering.” He slid the paper closer to him. 

“Don’t you people have calculators to do this with?” he asked after examining it. “What’s the point of solving for x if computers can just do it for you?”

Adam shrugged. “The government wants us to know.”

Crowley grinned. “Who said doing what the government wants was a good idea?”

Aziraphale felt the need to step in. “Well, that’s quite enough of that. Look, your teacher has provided formulas at the top of the page. All we need to do is follow them.”

This proved to be harder than they originally thought. The formulas weren’t explained in any way, shape, or form; obviously Mrs. Harris had deemed her students to know the information and didn’t bother explaining it. Adam, who had not been paying attention, did not know what any of the numbers meant. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said eventually, after he and Adam had puzzled over the first, decided it to be too difficult, and then moved on to the second which was even harder. “Shouldn’t you be helping? You invented this monstrosity, for God’s sake.”

Crowley grumbled. “Doesn’t mean I remember it. All I did was the basics. Al-Khwarizmi took it from there. I was too busy staring into those lovely eyes of his.” Crowley trailed off, lost in the past. He cleared his throat. “Anyways. I think you’re supposed to put that there.” He gestured to two of the symbols. 

Aziraphale glanced back at the problem. “Well, that _would_ make a lot more sense, now that you mention it.” 

With Crowley’s somewhat reluctant and slightly patronizing assistance, the maths worksheet was eventually finished. 

“I just have history left to do,” Adam said. 

“Well, we should be good at that,” Aziraphale stated cheerily. “We’ve been around, after all.”

“D’you know about the French Revolution?” 

Aziraphale and Crowley both perked at those words. 

“Do I ever!” Aziraphale began, shooting an indecipherable look at Crowley.

“First off, that wasn’t my fault,” Crowley interrupted, looking slightly put off.

“I didn’t mean to imply it was, my dear,” Aziraphale said. “I was simply recalling our-- ah, _meeting_.” 

The way they glanced at each other suggested it was more than a simple meeting, but Adam didn’t think he should push it. 

“I need to summarize the causes,” he said loudly, startling the two out of their moment. 

“First cause: people are idiots,” Crowley said. He planted a finger on the blank sheet of paper Adam had in front of him. “Write that down, kid.”

“Do _not_ ,” Aziraphale countered. “I’d say that the first cause would be… unhappiness.”

Crowley scoffed. “You-- you think they did that because they were _unhappy_ ? Angel, they were downright furious. _Livid_ at… at each other, and at the monarchy.”

“Well, yes. I said they were unhappy.”

“Unhappy doesn’t even begin to cover it! Besides, some of ‘em just liked killing.”

“I suppose that one fellow who was about to execute me _did_ seem quite content...”

“Oh, the one you _then sent off to get murdered_ cause you wanted crepes?”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “Yes, Crowley, that one.”

Crowley turned to Adam. “Fun fact. This angel once sent off an actual human to be killed in his-”

“Crowley, we don’t talk about that.” Aziraphale was turning red, and his voice rose with warning. "Besides, how do you know I didn't rescue him?"

“Oh, I _know_ you didn't, you--” Crowley’s voice started to raise too. 

Adam cleared his throat. “Excuse me. I still have to write my paragraph.” This interjection grounded both Aziraphale and Crowley.

“Right,” Aziraphale said, straightening his bowtie. “Sorry, Adam. Bit of a touchy subject.”

“You don’t have to help,” Adam offered. “She gave me a reading to go along with it. It’s fine.”

“If you insist, dear boy,” Aziraphale stated, though he looked rather glad to be pardoned of responsibilities. “In any case, I offer my editing assistance. I can give your writing a quick peek just to make sure it’s tip-top.”

“Thanks,” Adam said, then turned to his reading. It wasn’t terribly hard, and he had it all read in a few short minutes. The scratching of his pencil became the only sound for a while, and then the rustle of paper as he handed it over to Aziraphale to edit. 

“You spelled receive as ‘recieve’, but other than that it looks shipshape!” Aziraphale said as he passed Adam’s paper back. 

“That’s good,” replied Adam. “Mum’ll kill me if I get another bad grade.”

“What’d you say your teacher’s name was, again?” Crowley drawled from Aziraphale’s side.

“Mrs. Harris. Caitlin Harris,” Adam said. “Why?”

“If she doesn’t show up at school tomorrow, it’s not my fault.” Crowley winked and Adam grinned in response. Aziraphale, meanwhile, was horrified. 

“You can’t do that! Crowley, honestly, the poor woman hasn’t done anything. I can’t believe--”

“C’mon, Angel,” Crowley interrupted, grabbing Aziraphale by the arm and leading him towards the door. It opened suddenly, and Deirdre entered.

She startled at having nearly bumped into the two, and smiled apologetically. Her gaze then turned to Adam.

“Have you finished?” she asked. He nodded.

“Mr. Fell and Mr. Crowley were helping me.” Deirdre smiled at this and turned. 

“Well, I suppose I should thank you,” she said. 

“Oh, it’s really no trouble at all,” Aziraphale replied courteously. 

“We’ll be out of your hair now,” Crowley added from behind. His arm was still loosely intertwined with Aziraphale’s.

“Are you sure?” Deirdre asked. “We have plenty of food to go around. You’re welcome to stay for dinner.”

They exchanged glances. 

“You know,” said Aziraphale finally. “That sounds lovely.”

Adam grinned, and Dog gave an excited yip at his feet. “Let’s eat, then.”

“Yes,” his mother agreed. “Let’s.”


End file.
